Latest / Randy Unscripted / Wikipedia: Brilliant or Broken? - NaPodPoMo 2025 #6

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Wikipedia: Brilliant or Broken? - NaPodPoMo 2025 #6 · Randy Unscripted

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  Unknown: Wikipedia
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  is the best thing ever.
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  Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject
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  so you know you are getting the best possible information.
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  Randy Black: Hey, everybody. Welcome back
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  to Randy Unscripted. This month, I'm taking part in Napod Pomo, the national podcast post month, where podcasters around the world take on the challenge of creating and releasing an episode every day for the entire month of November. It's a great way to stretch your creativity, explore your ideas, and just talk about things that make you think.
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  Today's episode is one that hits close to home for anyone who's ever gone down an Internet rabbit hole, and I know I'm I'm guilty of that plenty of times.
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  We're talking about Wikipedia,
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  what it really is,
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  the good and the bad of it, and how it shaped the way we live and we learn today.
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  When you think about it, Wikipedia is kind of amazing.
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  It it's not a company, and it's not a news outlet, and it's it's
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  not really a traditional encyclopedia
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  either.
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  It's this massive living collection of human knowledge
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  written,
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  edited,
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  and and maintained by everyday people all over the world.
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  If you've ever looked up a movie or, you know, a scientific concept or even a small town historical event,
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  chances are
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  you ended up there.
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  Wikipedia has become the world's reference desk.
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  But what makes it so fascinating
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  is its mission.
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  The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia,
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  has this vision statement.
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  Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum
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  of all knowledge.
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  That
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  is a bold statement.
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  It's not about selling ads or subscriptions.
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  It's about access,
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  about openness,
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  and most importantly, it's about collaboration.
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  At its best, Wikipedia represents the Internet's original dream,
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  free information
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  for everyone.
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  But like a lot of dreams,
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  reality
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  tends to get a little bit messy.
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  So let's start with the positives because there is a lot to appreciate about Wikipedia.
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  Wikipedia
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  has broken down barriers that used to keep knowledge locked behind library doors or behind paywalls.
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  It's free.
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  It's global,
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  and it's available in more than 300
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  languages.
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  It doesn't matter if you're a college student
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  or a teacher
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  or just someone curious about how black holes work.
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  You have instant access to a massive pool of information.
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  It's also collaborative in a way that never really existed before.
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  Anyone can edit it. If you spot an error or you have a better source,
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  you can jump in and you can fix it.
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  That means Wikipedia
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  can grow. It can evolve.
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  It can update itself faster than almost any traditional source of information.
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  And for educators,
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  like me in a previous position,
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  it's become an unexpected ally at times.
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  For years, teachers had been telling students, don't use Wikipedia,
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  and some still do,
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  but the conversation has started to shift.
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  Now we're saying use it,
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  but use it wisely.
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  It's a it's an amazing starting point for research,
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  and it teaches critical thinking, like how to check citations,
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  how to compare sources,
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  and how to understand context.
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  In many ways,
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  Wikipedia has democratized
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  knowledge.
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  It's not perfect,
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  but it's accessible,
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  and that
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  is very powerful.
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  Of course,
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  the same openness that makes Wikipedia great can
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  also make it unreliable.
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  Since
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  anyone can edit,
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  that means anyone can introduce mistakes,
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  sometimes accidentally,
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  sometimes intentionally.
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  There have been plenty of cases where misinformation
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  sat on pages for days,
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  even weeks
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  before someone caught it and corrected it.
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  And then there are what some people call the, quote, unquote, edit wars.
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  That's when contributors can't agree on what's true.
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  In controversial topics, that can get messy very fast.
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  Wikipedia tries to enforce a neutral point of view,
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  but neutrality is tricky when real world issues are full of nuances
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  and of bias.
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  There's also the issue of who's writing.
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  Studies have shown that a small percentage of users
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  make most of the edits to Wikipedia,
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  and that group tends to be less diverse
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  than the world it's writing about.
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  That can lead to uneven coverage.
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  You know, like some topics get deep, detailed pages while others,
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  a lot of times, I hate to say it, especially about women in non Western countries or minority communities,
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  are barely represented.
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  As an educator, I've seen how students sometimes treat Wikipedia
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  as the final source
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  instead of the first.
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  And it's easy to forget that even a well written article
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  might be missing context,
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  or it may be relying on outdated information.
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  So while Wikipedia gives us incredible access,
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  it also asks us to be responsible users.
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  It's a reminder that open
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  doesn't always mean
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  accurate.
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  When we step back, the impact of Wikipedia goes far beyond just having an easy place to look things up.
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  It's actually changed how we think about knowledge itself.
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  Before Wikipedia, information was something we consumed.
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  It was written by experts,
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  published by institutions.
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  It was distributed through official channels.
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  Now
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  it's something we cocreate.
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  We add to it. We question it, and we update it in real time.
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  That is revolutionary.
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  It's influenced education,
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  journalism, and even technology.
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  Journalists rely on it as a quick reference,
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  sometimes too much,
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  but they do.
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  Artificial intelligence systems, including the the ones that we act with interact with every single day, often use Wikipedia data as a foundation that they begin to build off of.
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  That
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  does have the chance to create a feedback loop. Like, for example, if Wikipedia gets something wrong, that misinformation can spread,
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  and it could spread easily and and can spread in some surprising ways.
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  But there's also something deeply human about it.
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  Wikipedia is is like a mirror of the world.
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  It's showing what we care about,
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  what we argue about,
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  and what we think is worth recording.
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  It's not just a collection of facts.
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  It's a reflection
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  of our collective priorities
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  and our blind spots.
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  At the end of the day,
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  Wikipedia isn't perfect,
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  but
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  maybe it was never meant to be.
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  It's messy.
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  It's flawed.
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  It's constantly changing
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  just like us,
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  and that might be what makes it so remarkable.
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  It proves that that knowledge doesn't have to be locked away in a textbook
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  or controlled by only a few experts.
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  It could be open,
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  evolving,
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  and shared as as long as we approach it with curiosity
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  and a little bit of skepticism.
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  So the next time you're on Wikipedia at, you know, two in the morning reading about the history of coffee or the physics of time travel,
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  remember this.
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  You're not just learning from the Internet.
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  You're participating
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  in one of humanity's biggest experiments
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  in collective knowledge.
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  Thank you for joining me for another episode of Randy Unscripted.
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  This episode is part of my napod promo challenge,
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  30 episodes
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  in thirty days, exploring ideas both big
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  and small.
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  Until next time, remember to stay curious,
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  keep learning,
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  and always
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  keep asking
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  questions.
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  Randy Black.
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  Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. He's a troublemaker.